


Nightmares and Honey

by adamantCompulsions



Category: Homestuck
Genre: All that nice stuff, Angst, Fluff, Fluff & Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Meteorstuck, Nightmares, implied anyway, insomnia?, mild panic attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2019-02-06 14:50:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12819885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adamantCompulsions/pseuds/adamantCompulsions
Summary: Your name is Karkat Vantas, and you have fucking terrible nightmares.





	Nightmares and Honey

Your name is Karkat Vantas, and you have fucking terrible nightmares.

The other trolls know, of course; every troll gets them when they can’t fall asleep in the comforting familiarity of their recuperacoon’s cool sopor slime. And now all that slime has run out, the rest of you have taken to hiding yourselves away in piles of random crap and hoping you aren’t the sleep-screaming type, just in case the dreambubbles don’t get to you in time (they hardly ever get to you in time). You aren’t the sleep-screaming type.

What you are is the sleep-sobbing type. 

Dave is lucky. He embraces the darkness of the underside of his eyelids, and often (too often) he falls asleep during your movie nights. You have to admit, it’s kind of nice to feel his chest undulate against your side, and to hear his even breathing. Sometimes he lets his mouth fall open and it’s kind of adorable, even if he’d rip your tongue out if you told him that. Hell, _you’d_ probably rip your tongue out if you told him that. Then he starts drooling and it’s significantly less adorable.

The one thing you hate when he drops off like that (other than the drooling bit, because honestly, that’s just fucking disgusting) is how hard you have to fight to maintain consciousness afterwards. With a sleeping body leaning against your own, occasionally piled on top of you and keeping your legs paralysed for the next hour (sometimes more, the lazy bastard), it’s hard to find the strength (or the will) to stay awake yourself. So far, though, you’ve been doing well, considering he’s done this about fifty times by now (it’s actually seven, but who’s counting such an insignificant event that you frankly couldn’t give less of an iota of a shit about?). You only fell asleep once and you woke up before he did and hey, you’d been sitting there for _four fucking hours_ and it didn’t even matter because for once the dreambubbles worked for you (you still don’t know why they don’t cater to you so impeccably as they do to the others on the meteor, but who cares, right?). And anyway, you didn’t know that today would be one of their many, many off days and you didn’t know the horrorterrors were going to make an even bigger humiliating spectacle of you in these particular couple of hours than usual and it worked the last time you did it, so why would there be a problem?

Of course there was a problem.

You count yourself lucky you could fall asleep with him _one_ time.

You don’t remember the dreams. That’s your only comfort when slumber grips you in its cold claws; at least the details of the last restless unconsciousness are obscured. You remember colours, and you remember screams, but those are par for the course at this point. You’re starting to wish they would give you some variety; at least switch up the terrifying throes you’re subjected to whenever perigees of adrenaline and vivacity beverage wear off and leave you blacked out wherever your walk stubs have left you. 

You wake up, as usual, crying. 

Your face is wet, snot runs from your nose, and salt and mucus leave an imprint on your tongue. You snap your mouth shut, wishing it didn’t fall open whenever you lost the grip on your jaw muscles long enough. Your throat is slightly hoarse, and you wonder if it’s because   
you left your dribbling mouth open or because of the sobbing and groaning you most likely were up to during your nightmares. Then you take in your surroundings and oh shit you’re still in the common room with nothing to block the sounds of your suffering from prying aural spongeclots and with your disgustingly pink tears still treacherously staining your face and you can feel yourself slowly dying with every breath, still shaking despite the fact you must have woken up a solid minute ago. 

Then someone moves beside you.

Oh gog they’re going to _cull_ you if they see your distress fluids patterning your face in repugnant, candy-coloured pearls and you need to hide, you need to hide _right fucking now_ but before you can move you hear a voice that calms you down immediately and that alone makes you feel sicker and better at the same time.

‘Looks like Sleeping Beauty’s finally awake.’ It’s muffled and groggy, not as alert as usual, and you think Dave may have just woken up.

‘What?’ Your voice croaks and you hate it.

Dave reaches towards the table in front of you, and you realise he’s on the other side of the couch instead of pressed up against you where you left him. You don’t know what that means but it cannot be good. Your heart races.

‘Um.’ He sounds nervous as his fingers close around something cylindrical. ‘You … look.’ He holds it out to you and you hear something slosh a little with the speed at which he moves it.

You sniff at it, hating the dampness that resounds through the action, and remember your ugly face is covered in bodily fluids of varying degrees of disgusting. 

‘Uh … fuck. Wait.’ Reluctantly, your sweater sleeve takes the brunt off the shit off your skin and you promise to wash it thrice in the morning. Dave is patient, but his finger twitches against the mug, which you now realise it is, like it wants to tap against the porcelain. It’s funny how in his effort to not have nervous ticks, he just develops new ones, like a finger twitching against a cup instead of tapping. You look back at the thing he’s offering you, resisting the urge to wipe the mess on your clothes onto the couch. ‘What is that?’

‘It’s like, milk. With honey in it. You know, good old trying-to-get-to-sleep style.’ 

You blink. He shifts, very slightly, but the ripple on the couch feels like an earthquake. You think maybe this is a human custom; trying to get to sleep? So they make this when they want to get to … oh. He must have heard/felt you reacting to your night terrors, and left to make this so he could ignore you and actually get some decent shut-eye. You don’t know why he didn’t just go to his bed for the rest of the night, but humans often confuse you – especially this one. You deflate. You don’t know why he’s holding it in front of your face, but you can guess; to alert you to be quieter/stiller next time, or just not fall asleep near him at all, so he doesn’t have to go to the effort of making this weird honey and milk thing again. 

‘Oh.’ You lie back down against the other side of the couch, reluctantly, but you think it’d be rude to leave now no matter how much you want to. ‘Sorry. I’ll keep it down next time. Uh, not that there’ll be a next time. This was … a really big fucking mistake, I’ll … I would leave, but –’

‘What?’ Dave interrupts, and you swear you can see confusion on his face, but it’s still hard to tell with his expressions. His hand falters, bending only slightly closer to him. ‘You’re going to have to fill me in here. How was this your fault exactly? And also you know I want you to take this, right?’ he shoves it even closer than before. Some of it almost spills. ‘I don’t exactly have any other use for it, so …’ 

You blink. Did you get something wrong?

It’s only been five seconds at most, but Dave, as usual, feels the need to fill the void. ‘Sorry if it’s not that warm anymore. You … I was gonna give it to you when I made it, but I remember that stuff they say about sleepwalkers and how you shouldn’t wake them up and shit, and I don’t know if that counts for sleep … uh …’ he trails off, and then clears his throat half-heartedly. ‘But I thought I may as well not take any chances, so.’

‘I … you’re giving this to me?’ Clever. Genius. You should write a fucking book. 

‘Uh, yeah. Who else would I be giving it to? The invisible guy who was always taking people’s seats in primary school? Hey, what was with that guy anyway? Whenever some stranger walked up and wanted his seat he’d be like no fucking way, this is mine bitch, get your own seat, but then when a kid’s friend walks by he just moves like it’s no big deal? Maybe the invisible guy should get his shit together. Or the people who pretended he was real for their own personal gain like the precocious capitalists they are. You know, second graders.’ Dave’s finger twitches against the cup again. There’s a lull in the bullshit and you know you should use this time to take the milk thing, but … oh, you don’t know. You sigh aloud at your own thoughts, and also at his completely meaningless ramble because what the fuck is primary school, and reach out tentatively. 

‘Alright, whatever, I’m only taking it to get you to shut your fucking flap before the bullshit-o’-meter overloads and sends us all flying towards oblivion in a million scattered pieces.’ Your hand is outstretched, but it would be weird to just … take it from him. You wait. Dave realises you’re doing so way too many seconds after he should’ve, and shoves the mug into your hand with about as much tact as one would expect from a teenager who just had a serious, one-sided discussion with himself about the invisible guy from second grade. ‘One’ not meaning you, because seriously, what the fuck is second grade?

He pulls his hand back like it was burned, and you find yourself relishing the warmth of his hand against yours for the brief nanosecond they were touching. Okay, that’s disgusting, and you should stop immediately. It’s hard to stop immediately. 

You stare into the swirling, creamy-white depths of the drink. Your fingers roll against the surface, drumming a pattern onto the porcelain, your claws clinking against the ceramic surface with a sharp satisfaction. ‘What did you say this was?’ you mutter, half to yourself, even though it’s a question addressed to him. 

‘Milk,’ he replies. You think both of you noticed how quickly he spoke. ‘And honey,’ he adds after a small pause, likely meant to obfuscate the eagerness that leaked from his previous response. 

‘Like mind honey?’ you ask, your mouth turning upwards with repulsion as you push the cup further away from you out of instinct.

‘Uh, what? No, like, regular Earth honey. That you eat.’ Dave swallows and both of you can hear it. ‘Not, uh … whatever the fuck mind honey is? I’m assuming it’s bad, considering you almost dropped that on the floor at the idea of it.’ 

The guilt you feel is abhorrent. You pull the cup closer. 

‘So you’re sure it’s safe to eat?’ you ask, the smell of the mixture coiling under your nostrils. It’s still kind of warm. ‘Or, drink, I guess?’

‘Yeah. Well, for humans it is, and I mean, you can eat a lot of human food and I can eat a lot of troll food, even though frankly all your bug-infested vivers are shit, and wow I’m not really proving my point here am I?’ Dave’s finger twitches, now against the maroon fabric of his godtier pyjamas. 

‘Ugh, whatever, forget I asked. I didn’t know inquiring if something is edible would give me a migraine.’ You lift the cup and sip at it. 

The room is quiet.

You let the taste simmer on your tongue.

‘Holy shit.’ Your voice is still slightly hoarse, but you don’t care right now. ‘Holy mindfucking _shit.’_

Dave taps a finger against his leg. ‘Uh. Is that a good holy shit or a bad holy shit?’

‘The most positive and holiest of shits,’ you reply, a smile threatening to tug on your lips. You quench it with another gulp of the miraculous concoction, and also quench your wince that you just sincerely thought the word _miraculous._

Dave is smiling and pretending he isn’t. You don’t call him out on it. You’ll consider it your first step toward paying your newfound debt with him. ‘How the fuck did you figure this out?’

‘Rose taught me about it one time,’ Dave replies, and you jolt yourself out of wiping the milk from your mouth with the tainted sleeve from earlier a second before the damage could be done. ‘I kept pestering her at three in the morning and I guess she got sick of it.’

You snort and down the mug’s remaining contents. ‘I would too, jegus.’

‘Hey, don’t pretend you haven’t trolled me even earlier than that,’ the boy next to you chides. 

Your hands still clutch the cup, its residual warmth little but comforting. You stare into its dark depths and you think you can see a few tiny blobs of honey stuck on the bottom. You debate licking it out and then remind yourself you’re not Terezi.

You glance up at him. ‘You always answer me when I do that,’ you say. That is not what you wanted to say. His smile is well and truly gone now, not that it was fully there in the first place. 

‘Yeah.’ His finger twitches. ‘I guess the effect kind of wears off after a while.’

‘Oh.’ You look down at the cup again. The honey glistens a little. It’s thick and golden. ‘Well it’s fucking wonderful right now, so … thanks.’

You sneak a look at him, worried your gratitude is too late coming to mean anything. His finger lifts a millimetre and comes back down before realising what it’s doing. ‘No problem bro.’ His voice is light, with a smile on his consonants and a grin on his vowels. His face remains stone. ‘The least I could do to help a guy out.’

‘You’re going to have to teach me to make this some time,’ you insouciantly demand, and realising your dignity is already the punchline of the universe’s jokebook, say goodbye to the rest of it by digging your claw to the bottom of the china container and sucking the honey off your finger. You notice the corners of his mouth tugging upwards.

You think it’s a laugh.


End file.
